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The PEARCE 

NEW METHOD of 

BEE KEEPING 



By JOSEPH A. PEARCE 

'I 

Expert in Horticulture and Bee Keeping. 



REVISED THIRD EDITION 



Published bj 

JOSEPH A. PEARCE CO. 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 




Copyrighted 
1910 
1915 
1918 



Price $1.00 






'^^^ 




JOSEPH A. PEARCE. 
Author of the Pearce System of Bee-Keeping. 



©CI.A492915 
APR 12 (9i8 



^ €■: \ 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



PREFACE 




^ 



write this book for the purpose of putting in con- 
densed form the best things that I have learned in 
my forty years of bee keeping so they may be 
perpetuated for the benefit of any who may wish 
to take up bee keeping for pleasure or profit. 

By this method, bee keeping can be easily pursued 
almost everywhere in the city or country. There should 
be very many more people interested in gathering thia 
enormous honey supply which is now allowed to go to waste. 

The money making possibilities in honey production is 
estimated to be worth millions of dollars and it is a refined, 
health-giving business which has wonderful possibilities for 
the young and a pleasing and interesting occupation for 
those who have retired from active business. 

J. A. PEARCE. 



INDEX I 

I 

How I discovered my Present Method of Bee-Keeping. 

II 
The Hive We Use and Why We Use It. 

Ill 
When and How to Change from the Single to the Double 
Hive. 

IV 
The Pearce Method of Making New Swarms. 

V 
The Cause of Swarming and Swarm Control. 

VI 

Some of the Advantages of Having Bees in Buildings. 

VII 
Bees in House Attics and Barn Lofts. 

VIII 

How to Build a Bee-House for Twenty Swarms. 

IX 
Installing and Care of Bees. 

X 
Getting our Honey Supplies with Only Two Visits a Year. 

XI 
How to Remove our Surplus Honey. 

xn 

Feed, Feeders and Feeding Bees. 

XIII 

Wintering Bees. "' 

XIV 
Foul Brood, and the Pearce Method of Control. 

XV i 

Robber Bees and Their Control. 

XVI 

Bee-Keeping for the Far North. 

xvn 

How to Care for Weak Colonies in the Spring. 

xvni 

Methods of Queen Rearing. 

XIX 
Bees, Poultry and Fruit. 

XX 
How Bees Behave in a Chicken House, when Bees and Poultry 
Are Kept Together. 

XXI 
The Real Mission of the Bees. 

XXII 
Facts and Comments, 

XXIII 
Summary, 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



CHAPTER I 
How I Discovered My Present Method of Bee Keeping. 



Twenty years ago I began to put bees in buildings. One 
of the first I put up in a stable loft. I had known for some 
time that bees had been kept in small rooms or large places 
prepared for them and left to themselves to build their 
combs as they pleased. I was told that they would event- 
ually fill these upper rooms or boxes, and stay there from 
year to year without swanning. The people of the house 
could go up in the winter when the bees were dormant open 
these places and cut off honey for themselves as wanted. 
This looked attractive to me, but it was said that the moths 
would get in and destroy the bees, and I did not like this 
chunk honey, as it would not be neat and nice, so with this 
much information I started in to see if I could devise some- 
thing with our movable frame hives, large enough so the 
bees would not swarm and the moths could not destroy them, 
and that we might get the honey in nice one-pound boxes, 
as we were getting it out in our bee yard. 

The first outfit that I put up was three hives set side 
by side. I cut holes into these outside hives from the middle 
one, for the bees to go through. Then I let the bees fly 
out doors from the middle hive, and put my surplus cases 
on the middle hive. The bees soon began to fill these cases, 
but to my surprise and regret. I could not get the bees to go 
into these side hives. This, I saw was of no use so I took 
away these side hives, shut up the openings and put one of 
them on top of the middle hive. Very soon the queen began 
to fill this body with brood instead of swarming out, and I 
soon had seventy-five pounds of nice comb honey in the cases 
and was delighted. I then saw that I had been making a 
mistake in making my hive broad instead of high to enlarge 
it. Many of our bee-keepers think, that they should have a 
larger hive than the eight frame, and add ten, twelve or even 
fourteen frames in width instead of putting two of the 
eight-frame hives, one above the other, as I did twenty years 
ago, making a tall hive more like a hollow tree — the natural 
home of the bee. 

This hive is about a quarter larger than the Quimby 
hive and is about the right capacity for a queen to 
deposit all the eggs she wishes for the colony, so there 
will be no swarming, if sufficient surplus cases are put on in 
time so the honey may be carried above, to leave adequate 
space for the queen. Then again it is about the right size 



e PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

and form to enable the bees to store an ample supply to 
carry them through any Winter and Spring without danger 
of starvation. Now, after twenty years' use, I do not see 
any need for changing to anything different. This, then, 
is the hive I use and recommend. 

You will please notice, then, that all that is necessary 
to procure the results that we get from this method, is doub- 
ling the size of the hive and placing these hives in buildings 
where they can be amply protected. This makes all the 
other things possible which we will tell you about later. 

In handling bees by bee keepers in general, there has 
been about four ways resorted to for the purpose of getting 
the bees through the season in a successful manner. The 
first that I will mention is to put the bees in a single hive 
body, with 8 to 12 frames, of the Langstroth or regulation 
dimension. This hive is left on the summer stand or place 
where it stood all through the year without much of any 
protection. Others not being satisfied with this method, 
resort to some kind of packing about the hives, either put 
about the hives in the Fall and remove it in the Spring, or 
by having a permanent case attached to the hives to remain 
through the whole year, such as the original Root double 
hive and the modifications of it that have come down to the 
present time. Then some few, but this class has not been 
large, have tried burying their bees in a trench somewhat 
as they would for vegetables. 

Then another and much larger class, put their bees into 
cellars, below ground. All of these people use a single hive 
body for keeping their bees in. And without saying any- 
thing about the merits of any of these four methods for the 
present, I wish to bring to your notice the four places and 
ways that I use in my method of handling bees, which is 
known at the Pearce Method of Bee Keeping. The first place 
I will mention where they may be kept is in a barn or stable 
loft. The next is in house attic as kept in cities, next in 
poultry houses. Then in a house or shell, built especially for 
the bees. In all these ways, the bees are kept in two of the 
regulation hives, each hive being the same size and shape as 
the hive used by those who keep their bees below ground 
and out of doors. Thus you will observe that I use a hive 
with just double the capacity of my brother bee-keepers 
generally. These two hive bodies are used one above the 
other, making a tall hive that is divisable and may be made 
into two hives and used by others or put together as we usd" 
it. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 




Our hives in orchard at Author's home. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

CHAPTER II 
The Hive We Use and Why We Use It. 



I think it is plain to you by this time the we use a hive 
made of two of the ordinary Langstroth hives, that we 
formerly used and that is still used by the great mass of 
bee keepers, generally. In this article I will tell you all 
about it and why we used it. The first great reason is 
because the small hive we formerly used did not hold an 
adequate supply of honey to carry the bees throug'h the 
winter safely and it was just as inadquate to give the queen 
sufficient room to deposit all the eggs she would in the 
spring up to the honey harvest. Two very great defects. 
The one caused tremendous winter losses and the other 
prevented the queen from giving us the enormous swarm 
of bees early for the honey harvest that she would have 
given us if she could have been supplied with a more 
spacious hive. In talking over winter losses with that vet- 
eran bee keeper, Geo, E.Hilton, he remarked that he felt sure 
that nine-tenth of the bees that have died have died of star- 
vation. The cause for this was the hives were too shallow. 
They do not in any way provide space enough above the bees 
to hold enough stores for a winter's supply. When we think 
the matter over in regard to these shallow hives, we wonder 
that as many have lived through the winter without starva- 
tion in these hives as there have. Bees as every one knows, 
store their honey above them, and they should be given a 
hive of sufficient height to allow them to store a full supply 
to last them through any winter and spring and this is just 
what this tall hive made up of two bodies that I use and 
recommend, does. It is well known now that bees in the fall 
drop down to the bottom of any hive they are in, get into 
a circular mass and eat upward and do not or cannot see 
that it is well filled with winter stores. Then place these 
hives in shelters such as we recommend where you can give 
them the protection they should have from all storms that 
blow, where you can see that their entrances are opeil at all 
times so they will have proper ventilation and have a flight 
at any time in the winter when the weather is suitable. 
For it has been starvation and want of ventilation that has 
been two of the great causes of mortality in our bees. Many 
of our hives weighed in the fall around a hundred pounds. 
A hive that weighs a hundred pounds in the fall, is good 
for 100 to 200 next summer. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 




This hive is in the home of State Representative George W. Welsh. 
It gave him $50 worth of comb honey the first year it was installed, 
and is still doing as well. 



OUR HIVE. 

To procure our Hive, send to any dealer of Bee Supplies 
for the following: 

1. Plain bottom board, with V-jiiich opening. 

2. Standard dove-tailed 8 frame hives. 

1. Plain Higginsville Cover. 

2. 4 Super Cases. 

16. Hoffman Brood Frames, (8 in each hive.) 
24. One-pound Boxes for each Cuper, 



10 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

CHAPTER III 

When and How to Change from the Single to the 
Double Hive. 



If you are keeping your bees in a hingle hive as you pro- 
bably are and would like to change to our double method, 
you can do so most easily as we use no new fangled appli- 
ances and our hives are of the latest pattern in use. The 
best times to change in our latitude would be in the spring 
l^efore the honey flow about the last of April, and again at 
the time of taking off your white honey in July. Then you 
can fit up another hive body the same as the one you have. 
Set these on your parent hives and have them build up. If 
the season is good and there is fair fall flow, they will build 
up enough but if it is not it may be well to feed some as it 
is so important to have them have plenty of stores for 
winter. If you should think well to feed, you can put another 
hive body on top. In this put a 10-pound pail nearly full of 
syrup well dissolved into water and perforate the lid with 
fine holes, not too many. See that the lid is well put on and 
invert the pail on the frames right over the bees. It is the 
most natural way for bees to get their stores right above 
them. Invert the pail and the suction will hold the syrup 
in only as fast as the bees suck it out. When all is done 
cover up well with some porous material, old cloths or quilts 
or a tray filled with dry chaff is the best. If you should ever 
think this double system not the best and wish to change 
back all you have to do is to set your top hive off again, and 
all would be just as before. But none that have tried it feel 
like going back to the old way. If you put another body onto 
the hive, as you already have it will prevent swarming, 
which is such a nuisance; your bees will be held together 
through the honey season without swarming and the results 
in honey are liable to be as large or larger than if they are 
worked the other way and allowed to siwarm. At least that 
was our experience the year when I moved a load of bees 
home from an apiary where the location seemed much more 
favorable than where mine were placed. I doubled mine 
right up while those in the more favorable yard were left 
single yet mine filled the top hives and gave considerable 
more surplus than those in the single hives and were fine 
for winter. This is a fine plan, as where they are doubled 
in this way in the spring, they are sure to be alright for 
winter or to be set apart at the end of July to make increase 
at the end of the white honey flow, if you wish. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



11 




Changing- from the single to the double hive. 



12 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 




Making my first swarm by setting the two bodies apart as shown. 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Pearce Method of Making New Swarms. 



Theabove cut shows us making first public demonstra- 
tion showing how easy it is to make swarms by the Pearce 
Method of dividing, i. e., by just setting the two hive bodies 
apart. 

By this method of handhng bees in double height hives, 
we are enabled to hold our bees together until we take off 
our white honey, about the first of August, without loss from 
swarming. Then if we determine to make increase, this is 
the time to act. Prepare a hive with empty combs, or full 
sheets of foundation, in wired Hoffman, or other movable 
frames. Prepare one of these hives for each hive from which 
you intend to make a new swarm. You should also have a 
good queen for each hive thus prepared. These queens can 
be procured from any queen breeder for a low price at this 
time of the year. Or, if you are used to raising queens by 
some of the methods now used, you could have raised them 
for yourself. I believe you had better buy your queens 
unless you are well equipped and experienced. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 13 

Now we will suppose that you have your empty hives 
placed by the side of each full one, from which you intend to 
make increase; that you have just removed your surplus 
honey and have a queen ready for each new hive. Pull back 
you old hive and place the one prepared where the old one 
stood. Then remove four outside frames from the new hive. 
Replace these thus removed by four frames from the old 
hive, preferrably two from each side, as they have more 
honey and are less liable to have brood. Place four frames 
from the new hive in the center of the old, by prying the 
frames left in the old hive to the outside. Drop the new 
ones in the center. In this way the four empty frames are 
in the center of each hive. Now raise up the top frame of 
your new hive, and place the new queen which is caged, in 
the middle and on top of the bottom set of combs. Replace 
top hive, and cover up carefully. This leaves the new queen 
and new hive, and a little honey where the old hive stood. 

The old bees in this full hive will return to the new hive 
at the old location. 

Now carry the old hive to its new location, about one 
or two rods away if possible. The queen and young bees will 
not go back to the old hive, as will the old bees that have had 
a flight, but will remain with the brood in the old hive at the 
new location. They will be strong enough to care for their 
brood. The old bees that you have got to forsake their old 
home for the new hive on the old stand would have died 
before winter. But they will answer the purpose of building 
up this new hive, and caring for it, until the young queens' 
progeny is on the stage of action, which will not be long, for 
if she were put in this new hive today. I would expect her 
to be laying by morning. 

This completes the very best way I know of to make 
increases and get a large honey supply easily. It will be of 
great value to our fellow bee-keepers, and others, as soon 
as known and practiced, because you do not have to go thru 
the hive to look up the old queen, but simply carry her away 
with the old hive. You have all of August and September to 
see that these hives get propo/rly prepared for winter. If 
the fall honey is not coming in as it should, it would be 
well to look to the bees at this season, and if not building up 
rapidly, feeding might be resorted to, as it is important that 
they should have sufl[icient properly sealed stores for winter. 
It should always be in order in early fall to give the bees a 
thorough examination, to ascertain their real condition as 
regard to stores, and also to detect any sign of disease. 

When you take off the white honey, if you determine 
you do not care to make increase, it would be well to put on 
some supers, or full bodies till later, so as to give the bees 
room to secure surplus that might be coming in. 



14 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 




A little German straw hive in the High School, which is of value to 
show how small a hive was formerly used. One of our large, swarms 
in our large hive woul .fill this little hive in two days on a good tiow 
and be obliged to swarm out.. In this cut we show the method of 
transferring from small Old Style German hive to removable frame 
hive, giving more room to bees and making them produce straight 
combs. 



CHAPTER V 
The Cause of Swarming and Swarm Control. 



It is very probable that the cause of swarming, and its 
control is not very well understood by many of our bee- 
keepers, and I feel sure that these two things are of greater 
importance than almost anything else in our pursuit, for so 
many other things are affected by them: It would seem 
as if on these "hang all the law and the prophets" of bee- 
keeping. It is generally supposed that swarming is the nat- 
ural and legitimate way of increase for the Bee family, and 
therefore it is not much use to try to prevent it, or iind out 
the cause. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



15 




View of bottom of Old Style German Hive. Bees were transferred 
to regular moveable frame hive. While this hive is filled with honey, 
it is almost useless as there is no way to remove it without destroying 
contents. 



It has been noticed that usually when there is a big 
sudden honey flow there is a spell of excessive swarming 
and therefore these two conditions seem to be in some way 
connected. So then bees do not swarm at all times alike 
as might be expected if they were just fulfilling the law 
of increase to perpetuate the race. It also has been observed 
that when bees swarm, about all available space in the hive 
is filled up. It does not necessarily follow that all the combs 
are wholly filled or sealed up, for as soon as ever so little 
honey is placed in the cells they are of no more use for the 
queen to deposit eggs in until this honey is moved. Then if 
a sudden large honey flow comes on and all available space 
in the hive is filled, there is nothing for the bees to do but 
start queen cells and swarm out as there is no place for the 
queen to deposit eggs. Bees will not cease gathering honey 
for any cause if any is to be had, therefore if there is a 
goodly number of bees in a hive and a large honey flow comes 
on and the queen is depositing from one to two thousand 



16 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

eggs in a day with pollen being brought in to feed the bees, 
it is only a question of a very short time till there will not 
be an available cell left for the queen to deposit eggs in. 
Then swarming is inevitable as it is the only way to make 
more space for the queen to deposit eggs whether we want 
swarming or not. Therefore, it seems as if the lack of space 
for the queen to deposit eggs is the prime cause of swarm- 
ing. 

If this is so it would be an unwise thing for a bee-keeper 
not to provide a queen with adequate space to deposit all the 
eggs she is capable of, especially in early spring when a 
big stock of bees are so essential. It is no use raising bees 
after the harvest comes. It is said that no bee carries 
in more than a spoonful of honey in her life time. If so, it 
is only by securing a great number of bees early that we can 
be assured a large honey crop. Several different ways have 
been adopted to give the queens more room. 

Our veteran Bee Keeper, Alexander, used to extract 
from the brood chamber in the spring to give his queen room 
and feed back as needed. But this was a great deal of 
trouble and would not fill the bill as a very prolific queen 
might soon overflow a small hive with eggs alone. Then 
others run for extracted honey and extract from the surplus 
cases in order to give more room. But this is not much use 
if the brood chamber is too small and unless the queen is 
allowed to go above, swarming is liable to occur. None of 
us want swarming as early as fruit bloom, it is an intoler- 
able nuisance. A large bee-keeper a number of years ago, 
I do not now remember his name, said if he "could only con- 
trol this everlasting swarming he would surely have a great 
thing." Many devices at different times by different men 
have been gotten up to prevent swarming, but nearly all 
have failed as it did not provide for the making of increase 
artificially if increase is needed. Therefore it seems almost 
certain that the great cause of swarming is the queen becom- 
ing hampered by inadequate space to deposit eggs. If this 
is the cause, what is the remedy? Everything points to a 
larger brood chamber. More and more I feel sure bee- 
keepers are making up their minds to this. When we look 
at the little straw hives used in Germany and other count- 
ries we see clearly that our forefathers did not realize the 
capacity needed for their bees, why a good swarm such as 
we now have in our large hives would fill one of these little 
hives in two days on a good honey run and have to swarm 
out. To prevent this, we use and advise a very much larger 
brood chamber and find that two of these hives that we 
formerly used is none too large to hold an adequate winter 
supply of honey and is just as much needed to hold all the 
brood a good queen can supply up to the honey harvest. 
And surely it would be the height of folly to not supply the 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 17 

queen with all the needed room at such an important season. 
And then we find it is the thing to prevent natural swarm- 
ing; not one of all these 200 hives here have swarmed this 
year to my knowledge and I believe I would know if they 
had. It has not been as bad a year for swarming as last 
year, but a lot of fellows have had to chase around after 
swarms and climb trees. All of this might have been spared 
by just putting another hive body on the one the bees were 
in about the first of May and then putting on some honey 
cases early so the bees could carry the honey up out of this 
big brood nest to give the queen room, then go about your 
business till you take off your honey. If you want increase, 
you can have it by setting these hives apart and putting 
two more hives on these, one on each and a queen in the 
queenless one. Both our hives used are alike and inter- 
changeable, 8 frames dove-tailed hives, and both bodies 
"boiling over with bees, no loss from ascending or other 
cause, no climbing trees as these large hives control swarm- 
ing naturally, give us the honey and save us untold labor 
and annoyance, enable us to get unlimited quantities of 
comb honey of the highest quality, a most valuable things, 
as the production of comb honey is most desirable in so 
matiy ways. It is clean, it is nearly double in price, and 
honey in the comb is by far better flavored than extracted 
honey, and further, its production should greatly assist us 
in eliminating foul brood. 

Of all the things that I have found out about bee-keep- 
ing there is none of near so much value to the bee-keeping 
world as this method of swarm control, as it is accomplished 
by the use of two of the regular Langstroth hives used as 
one. No new fangled things are brought in or are necessary. 
And not only is this made possible for extracted, but we 
can produce, as you see, unlimited quantities of fine comb 
honey without having the bees swarm naturally and then 
later if we want increase we can have it easily, quickly 
and cheaply in three or four ways. 



18 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



\_ 'II . ' ^rqi ^ 




Our Method adopted by State of Michigan for its Prison Farm at 
Jackson. One of three Apiaries, each holding 68 Colonies at t^e West 
Farm, at Jackson Prison. 



CHAPTER VI 
Some of the Advantages of Having Bees in Buildings 



Of the first I will mention is, the less liability of bees 
stinging when properly placed in buildings during the hand- 
ling of them. The operator being shut away from the active 
flying bees from the hive entrance is not much disturbed 
by the few bees that leave the combs while handling them. 
If the windows are provided with suitable openings, all bees 
will rapidly escape and make no trouble. Then bees in build- 
ings do not have to be moved in winter or summer. When we 
used to place our bees in the cellar in the late fall and remove 
them in the spring, it was always attended with a good deal 
of anxiety to know just when to make these movements, 
without much disturbance and considerable loss to the bees. 
Besides the advantage of a much superior wintering and 
healthier condition of the bees in the spring. When it comes 
to working with the bees in the house, we have them elevated 
about 20 inches, which makes it much easier to work Outside 
on the ground, we are without the shade that the house af- 
fords, which reminds me of what a relief such shelters would 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 19 

he in the far south where the houses could have shutter to 
open on the sides for air and light. And working under such a 
canopy must be greatly valued by our southern bee-keepers, 
lumber also being much cheaper there than here. The advan- 
tages of having a shelter at hand with the bees, where we 
can keep our appliance, to work with, cannot be too highly 
appreciated, as we do not have to go back and forth to a 
honey or supply house to get the fixtures we need. The 
A^alue of this alone and the benefits of the shelter from 
storms and the shade afforded would go far towards paying 
for the construction of the shelter. And when we look at 
our bees so nicely housed away from all the severer storms, 
it makes one wonder that any one should ever leave their 
bees out most of the time where it is impossible to keep the 
entrance of the hives open for proper ventilation that is so 
•essential. 

One of the greatest benefits from the shelter is that 
we can work with our bees in almost all kinds of weather, 
when if they were outside we would not think of working 
with them. I looked through a light colony the 15th of 
March and saw that they had a queen and brood, but I 
would not have thought of this if they had been outside, 
so I feel sure if our bee-keepers will carefully weigh the 
advantages and disadvantages of these three prominent 
ways of keeping bees, they must become convinced of the 
vast superiority of building an inexpensive shelter for the 
T&ees where they are safe at all times from storms and 
marauders and where you can examine them at any time 
and keep the entrances of the hives open at all times from 
Avithin and without, which is so very important for the well- 
beings of the bees. And the bees can remain winter and 
summer, no lugging up or down stairs twice a year, no pack- 
ing, fall and spring, nor trouble and annoyance with double- 
walled hives during the working season. I feel sure if you 
reflect on these things, you will wonder that we all have not 
housed our bees before instead of keeping them in the dif- 
ferent ways that we have, subjected to so much uncertainty, 
annoyance and inconvenience. 



20 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 




Two outfits put up a dozen years ago in a stable loft for a Banker, 
They are still doing well. 



CHAPTER VII 
Bees in House Attics and Barn Lofts. 



House attics and barn lofts are about the only places 
where bees can be successfully kept in the cities. As there, 
on account of the proximity of the neighbors it would be 
impossible to keep them on the ground. It may not be 
known to every one, that bees when placed anywhere above 
the second floor do not give any annoyance to anyone on 
the ground, but this is a fact, and so it enables the people 
in the cities to keep bees and get a supply of this 
most pure and luscious sweet as well as their neighbors in 
the country. As about all the city dwellers have spacious 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 21 

unused attics, which make very good places to install a few 
colonies of bees on this plan, which gives them a good deal 
of pleasure and profit, for there still remains a strong love 
in these city dwellers for something that resembles the farm 
from which many of them have come to take up the more 
artificial life of the cities. Brick walls and asphalt pave- 
ments do not quite satisfy them, and a few colonies of bees 
with their busy hum, seems to go a good ways towards fill- 
ing this longing in their nature for something that reminds 
them of the old farm. Therefore, I hope those that are 
better acquainted with the business will hear me while I 
make a minute explanation in this chapter for the use of 
these people who have perhaps never kept bees before. Then 
I want to say that bees when properly placed seem to get 
equally as much honey in the city as those in the country. 
And now I want to caution everybody that attempts to keep 
bees inside of rooms or attics or lofts, to look well to their 
windows and make them so any bees that do accidently get 
in, can readily get out. Bees do not purposely come into a 
room, but if they do get in through some hole, they go on the 
windows and die there. It you take out all windows, all bees 
will go out immediately and no more will come in, so the 
way to fix all windows that you do not darken, is to cut the 
glass about half an inch short at the bottom of the window, 
or to darken all windows that are not so cut at the bottom. 
Be particular about this, for I feel sure that bees dying on 
windows was the prolific cause for the abandoning of old 
time house apiaries. And I feel sure that of the things I 
have found out, nothing has been of more importance to me 
than making this half inch cut at the bottom of the win- 
dows. This matter is of such importance that it would pay 
to have a carpenter or glass man, for in a half day or less 
they could fix all windows in the attic perfectly. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
How to Build a Model Bee-House for Twenty Swarms. 



Always build your bee-house running North and South 
and on the level. 

It is built North and South so that the bees on both 
sides get an equal share of sun light, so they do not get the 
cold winds from the north, or the uneven heat from the 
south. In other words, there is more protection from 
extremes: the cold wind in winters, undue heat in summer. 
If built East and West, the bees on the south-side would 



22 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 





Exterior of a Model Bee House for ten Colonies of bees at the homo ' 
of the author of this book. 



always have sun, and those on the north would get none. 
In this way those on the east get the morning sun and those 
on the west the afternoon's. The house must be made level, 
else the hives will not be level on the shelves. Bee-hives 
must always be on the level, so that the combs of honey will 
be built straight and true. 

The house should be about 7 feet wide and about 7 feet 
high, and as long as necessary, counting one foot for each 
swarm for which you intend to build a shelter. We set our 
hives two feet apart from center to center and have room on 
each side, which makes a total count of one foot of house for 
each colony. We place our studding two feet apart from 
center to center, and make our windows just two feet square 
on the outside of the sash. We place a window between each 
stud, and hinge it from the top, so that they swing outwardly, 
and shut against the studding. These windows must have 
the glass cut i/o iiich short at the bottom, so any bees that 
might get into the house can easily get out again. 

It would be well to put a little cement wall under the 
building, and a light cement floor inside. The frame is all 
built with 2x4 scantling, and for the side walls we use 
shiplap or German siding. The roof is covered with dressed 
hemlock and roofing material. We make a shelf on each side 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



23 





Interior of house shown on page 22 , 



of the building, all along the inside wall. This shelf is twenty 
inches wide and placed twenty inches from the floor. It is 
used to set the hives on. The bracket for these shelves can 
be made mostly of short pieces left from the construction. 
These pieces are securely nailed to the studding and braced 
either from the studding, or down to the floor. A door is 
placed in each end of the building. 

In siding up the building put on four strips which bring 
it level*with the top of table, then tack on one strip lightly, 
for this strip is later to be taken out. Then side up until you 
are high enough for the bottom of your windows, which 
should be nearly four feet from the floor, place in your win- 
dows, and side from the top of them to the roof. 

When all is completed, their should be a lighting board 
for the bees. This could be made with the piece of loose sid- 
ing mentioned above. To fasten this, bore holes in the side of 
the building, and pivot this piece of siding ; or brackets could 
be put on, and this strip hinged from the bottom so as to fall 
downward. In this way, this piece of siding can be used 
for a lighting board and in bad weather can be turned up, so 
as to close the entrance and to protect the bees. This light- 
ing board should be hinged, so as to drop no further than 
ninety degrees. 

We put strips of board across, nailed to the base of the 
rafters. These brace the building, and it makes a very con- 
venient place to store things. This place overhead and one 



24 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

under the benches, makes about all the store room, needed. 
You should also have a light table 21/2x21 by 20 inches high, 
which is the same height as the benches on which the bees 
are placed. 

This table is useful if you are making new swarms, 
transferring, or for any other kind of work, to set the 
second hive, on, tools etc. 

If you wish, with very little extra labor and expense, 
see chapter XIX and XX a building of this kind can also be 
used for a poultry house. 



CHAPTER IX 
Installing and Care of Bees. 



The house attic, loft in the barn or out-buildings are 
the best place to keep bees, because they are entirely out 
of the way. They are dry and warm and do not disturb 
anything on the ground, and nothing disturbs them, when 
placed anywhere near as high as the second floor, they seldom 
disturb anything below them, thus giving no annoyance 
either in city or country to anything about them when so 
placed. 

The spring is the best time to install bees — from the 
middle of April to the middle of May — because then it is 
possible to get a honey crop to pay for them the first season. 
But if necessary, it can be profitably done in July, or the 
first of August, just after the first honey flow is over. 

If the hives are installed in the attic of a house, the 
space from the floor up should be as much as four feet; if 
higher, all the better, as the tall hives with their honey cases 
extend upward some distance. If there are some windows 
in the attic, cut a piece out of the lower sash-bar a little 
longer than the width of the hive. Then put a two-inch 
piece around it on the inside on the top and on the ends, 
as the hive bottom fills up the bottom space so that when 
the hive is pushed up in place, it is two inches from the 
window. This will admit a window curtain to shade the 
bees from the hot sun, and will also facilitate the putting on 
and taking off of the honey cases and winter coverings. 
Build a shelf as high as the window or nail legs on to the 
back of the hive, which must be level, or the back end one- 
half inch higher. Put the hive up in place, and all is 
done. If, however, the bees are to be set by the wall, which 
is often done in attics or lofts, cut a three or four-inch slot 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 25 

level with the floor as long as the width of the hive ; put a 
piece of binding or scantling at the ends and on top of this 
opening, and then it is ready for the bees. 




An outfit by the Pearce Method in the High School in Grand Rapids, 
which gave the teacher far above a hundred pounds of comb honey 
while away on her vacation. Repeats this each year. 



If you have never handled bees, it is best to get a regu- 
lar bee-keeper to furnish the bees and put them in for you. 
In case, however, this is impossible, the following method 
will be found of value : 

If the bees have to be moved some distance, go to the 
bee-yard in the day-time and carefully put a covering of 
burlap or wire screen over the whole of the top of the hive 
and tack it to a little frame the size of the top of the hive. 
This is done so that it can be tacked to the hive and taken 



26 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

off quickly. Wait until the bees are all in at night, then go 
and stop up the entrance, using some old cotton or calico 
rags pushed in with a screwdriver or knife. Leave one end 
out a Httle to get hold of, if desired. 

To place the bees in position and liberate them after you 
have them home, move them up to the opening and when all 
is ready to push them up to it, pull out the rags quickly 
and push them up in place before many bees get out. If 
preferred, push them up in place, and if they do not quite 
fit, take some bits of rags and make all tight so no bees can 
possibly get into the building. Now go outside, take a ladder 
and chmb up and pull the rags out from the outside, first 
putting a veil on to shield the face. If, however, the situ- 
ation is too high to reach conveniently from the outside, 
then pull out the rags from the inside and push the bees into 
position before many get out. When all is quiet, proceed to 
take off the top screen or burlap. Screw this frame on with 
four screws so that it can easily be removed. If you have 
a little smoke — every bee-keeper should have a smoker — it 
is a wise plan to give the bees a little smoke to make the 
most of them go below before removing the screen. After 
removing the screen or cloth, put on the section cases, which 
must be ready and filled with foundation starters. These 
will probably have to be procured from your local supply 
dealer, for if you are keeping only a few bees, it will hardly 
pay to rig up to prepare them for yourself; and, as all they 
cost can be obtained when they are sold with the honey, 
nothing is lost. 

When the honey is removed in the fall and the hive is 
open, prepare to cover it with some porous material such as 
folded quilts, carpets, or one of the honey cases with the 
honey boxes removed. Lay a piece of burlap in it, fill with 
chaff and set it on the hive ; but before doing this, it is well 
to put a piece of wire netting over the hive and put the case 
over this to keep the mice out. This porous material is 
put on because there is moisture which rises from the bees 
which this lets through, and they winter better for it. Some 
winter successfully with just the board covers sealed down, 
wt the porous quilts are to be preferred ; too many cannot 
be used in winter or summer. 

In the Spring. 

Put as many as four or even more honey cases filled 
with foundation on top of these two hives. Be sure to have 
enough, letting them go as they please till near the first of 
November, when the bees will cluster down in the large 
hive-body out of this sealed honey. ^ 

Then, with a strong knife or screwdriver, quietly pry 
loose these honey-cases, as they will be stuck fast with bee 
glue. Across the corner is the best place to pry first to 
loosen them, and it should not take more than five minutes 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



27 




A perfect healthy frame of sealed brood or bees almost ready to hatch. 



to take off the honey cases in the fall, nor more than that 
amount of time to put them on in the spring. Do not fail 
to put the honey-cases on the first of May and take them 
off the first of November, and, since it is quite probable that 
these two visits are the only ones which will of necessity 
be made during the year, it is essential that the work be 
carefully done at these times. 

Remember to take off the wire screen if you have had 
one on during the winter, and set on the honey-cases care- 
fully and straight, making all movements around the bees 
very quietly, thus avoiding all stings. Do not pound or 
thump on the hive, as the bees are apt to come out and 
resent it. Put on plenty of honey cases, as many as four 
at a time ; or if you are at all acquainted with bees, put on 
two at a time every two weeks until six have been used. On 
top of these honey cases, pile all the winter covering. A 
piece of oil-cloth can be put on top of the- cases first, oil 
side down, and the winter covering on top of this. Now let 
them alone, unless it is possible to have a bee expert look 
them over. About the first of November, when the good 
wife gets the buckwheat cakes started, take the honey-cases 
off and cover up the hive for their long winter's nap. 

There must be no crevices where the wind from outside 
can blow up through the hives. Remember that if all is 
tight above, the draught from below will do no harm. 



28 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

CHAPTER X 
Getting Our Honey Supply With Only Two Visits a Year. 



Are bees destined to give man his greatest and most 
easily obtained sweet supply ? It really looks as if they are. 
There is a honey supply coming down to us each year that 
is greater in value than any of our farm crops or cattle, and 
is allowed to go to waste when it might be gathered up so 
easily. 

Bees have spread themselves, or have been spread by 
man, until now there is scarcely a place where man is, where 
bees are not. They have, as it were, been running parallel 
with man, sometimes getting a little too near to him, but 
always as if they were saying to many, "Take and use us," 
but man has not been intelligent enough to do so. He now 
seems to be waking up to the great possibilities of the honey 
bee, so let's canvass the situation a little to see where we 
are at. 

As we have said, man is on the job, the bees are with 
man and this enormous honey supply comes down to us each 
year unsolicited, and unlike our mineral wealth, which once 
used is gone forever, the honey supply is renewed for us each 
year. Then all that seems to be needed is for man to put 
this great combination together and use it for his benefit. 
Heretofore, he had not had proper understanding of the 
bees, nor the proper appliances to work with, but now, I 
feel sure that both the knowledge of the bees and the ap- 
pliances to handle them have been so improved, that there 
should be a great advance on the double quick, to gather 
up this great store of the purest of all sweets and most 
valuable commercial product for man's benefit. So at 
this point it seems very fitting that we have emblazoned on 
the front cover of our national magazine this advice, "KEEP 
MORE BEES." In the past the farmers and others have 
had no knowledge of the bees other than to have them 
increase by natural swarming and in the little hives that 
they have been kept in, they are sure to swarm out at haying 
time, when the farmer is so pestered with other jobs all 
coming at once, that he voted bee-keeping a failure and quit. 
But now with the modern appliances, in which bees do 
not swarm naturally, he should take this matter up with 
vigor and secure for himself and family this sweet supply 
which is all about him. The bees will go out. and bring it in 
for him and if he desires he need not even go out doors for 
it. It is along this Hne that I vdll now write. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 29 

I will suppose, then, that you have one or more swarms 
of bees. Instead of letting them swarm naturally as they 
have been doing, or will do if you leave them as they are, 
about the first of May, or just before the fruit blooms, just 
put on another hive body filled with good straight founda- 
tions or combs, and give access to this, that is, do not have 
anything between the two hives. Then put on top of these, 
comb honey cases for 50 or 150 pounds, and put this outfit 
in a shelter where they will be away from all storms and 
marauders, and you can go about your business till about the 
first of November when the bees will have clustered down 
in this big hive out of your surplus honey and you can lift off 
your honey without seeing or hearing a bee and you will 
receive your sweet supply with far less labor than you have 



CHAPTER XI. 
How To Remove Our Surplus Honey. 



There has been many ways practiced in removing sur- 
plus honey. In former years before the Porter bee escape 
came into use we used to take off our surplus honey ; carry 
it all into a bee tight honey house, pile the cases up cric-cross 
before a window and let the bees fly onto the window, turn- 
ing it from time to time till all bees would leave the cases. 

But now everybody is supposed to use the Porter bee 
escape, therefore it will be along this line I will speak. If 
we only have one or two cases of honey on the hive, it is not 
very much of a problem to raise them up or set them off and 
put on the bee escape board, but where we have a goodly 
number of comb honey supers or hive bodies filled for 
extracting; it becomes rather a perplexing job to know just 
what to do when we have to remove this surplus. Last year 
we had as high as six to eight surplus cases on many of our 
hives at the end of the white honey flow the first of August. 
The big double body hives were over flowing with bees, so 
it would have been almost impossible to have the bees go out 
of these surplus cases down into these over crowded brood 
chambers, so I hit upon the following plan which I found to 
work very fine and was the easiest I had ever tried. I took 
an ordinary empty hive body or hive with empty combs or 
foundation and no honey and set it down by the side of the 
hive that I intended to remove the honey from and put a bee 
escape board on this empty hive body with a bottom board. 
Now you are ready to remove your honey. You can take the 
cases off one by one from the full hive and place them on 
yourbee escape board. If you have more than four or five 



30 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

cases or bodies it might be well to fix another empty hive or 
only remove a part of all this surplus at time as the bees- 
will usually leave the cases in one night, then you can 
remove these and set on the balance to have the bees go out 
of them. 

You will notice that as fast as the bees go down through 
the bee escape board they will go down through this empty 
hive and back to the old hive they were taken from. This 
old hive will be very crowded with bees after all these cases 
are removed and if you are intending to make increase this 
would be the time to do it. By setting this full hive away 
to a new stand and put another hive with combs or founda- 
tion and a new queen on the old stand all the old bees will 
come back to this old stand and care for this young queen 
till her progeny comes on the stage for action. Then you can 
give this new hive some of the stores from the old hive. 

This is the easiest way and safest that I know of to 
remove our honey for you see no bees can get at your 
honey up through the bee escape board and if you cover your 
honey safely on top it could set there for a week without 
danger from outside robbers. 



CHAPTER XII 
Feed, Feeders and Feeding Bees. 



There have been a great many devices made for feeding- 
bees, and I have tried quite a number of them, and while I 
would not want to be discourteous to any, I would like to tell 
something about them and the one I like best and why. 

Before we can feed anything intelligently, we have first 
to understand how that being takes its food. For instance, 
if we were going to feed a giraffe, we would not want to place 
its food down near its shoulders as you would feed a man or 
other short-necked animal, for if we did, it would probably 
starve to death, but if we put its food away up where none 
of these other animals could reach it, then it could get along 
very well and would have a monopoly of the food. Likewise 
with the bees, they take their food from above, like a giraffe,, 
but not in so marked a degree, and to feed them intelligently, 
we have to understand this fact. The bees always store their 
food above them, and that would prove where they expect to 
feed during the winter. In the late fall in our climate, the bees 
drop down to the bottom of the hive or tree and prepare for 
the winter. They cluster in a round mass between the combs, 
in empty combs where the brood was last hatched out, but 
if all frames are full, they first eat out the honey in the 
cluster or this ball of bees as we call them, because if that 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 31 

"was left there, it would keep the warmth from passing from 
one division to the other. Then as colder weather approaches 
they take their honey from above and thus extend the empty 
combs upward as they pass up, and so they continue till the 
approach of spring. Upon a moment's reflection, you will 
understand that they could not have gone in any other direc- 
tion. These separate divisions of bees could not get out of 
the spaces they are in and they could not cluster with their 
heads downward, or they would have a rush of blood to their 
heads and die of apoplexy. If they tried to lie down on their 
sides all this time, they would probably have to have an 
operation for appendicitis before spring, or have some bad 
adhesions, so "it is all up with them," as the sweeper said 
when he was stuck in the chimney, and therefore they pass 
upward to success if there is enough honey above them or 
to sure death if there is not. Should they reach the board, 
if it is a sealed down cover, or the burlap, if it is porous 
material as it should be, and if the honey is all gone, they will 
die. Nothing but good stores directly above them is of any 
use, as they cannot change to other combs outside of the 
cluster and would perish with plenty of honey in the sides 
of the hives, as has often been seen, for when they consume 
all above them, they cannot reach any of the honey stored on 
€ach side of them and so die. 

When they have reached the top of the hive or board 
they must be fed. To feed I use granulated sugar, as we 
all do, when obliged to feed. With our bees in our two-body 
hive, we do not have to feed much, as the bees feed them- 
selves. To make the feed or syrup, I put sugar into a pail 
or dish and mark or measure to where the top of the dry 
sugar comes, pour boiling water on it till the sugar is dis- 
soled or melted, continuing to stir as the sugar settles down 
and to pour in water till it comes up to where the dry sugar 
was. Then you will have a s/rup about right for the table 
or for the bees, and after the first batch, you can make it 
thicker or thinner by raising or lowering the water from 
this mark, but keep on stirring till the syrup looks perfectly 
clear and all the sugar is dissolved. This is important so 
as not to clog the feeders. 

About feeders. I just use a ten-pound honey pail with 
friction top. This makes the best all-around feeder I have 
ever tried. I perforate the lid with fine holes, with a sharp 
small awl, the only thing to be considered being to get this 
perforation done as it should be. For a light colony, do not 
perforate out too far from the center, as the syrup might 
drip away if you get the holes beyond where they are any 
bees. 

Fill your pail up to an inch or two of the top, so as to 
leave a vacuum, but you can feed a half pail or less if you 
wish. When your warm syrup is in, put on the lid, see 



32 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

that it is on good so as to exclude all air and not leak. Then 
invert it over the bees right down on the naked frames, then 
put a hive body, or hive rim with neither top nor bottom 
around this can on top of your hive, and fill it with rags or 
crumpled paper, or most anything porous, and pack it down 
snug. Then you can put on your cover and your job is done. 
Your bees will take down this syrup winter or summer, and 
if you will keep your bees in buildings as we do, above 
ground, you can feed at any time or look at your feeder at 
any time of the year, in any weather, only do not open a bee- 
I will now briefly explain some of the reasons why the 
bees in buildings have so much better chance to survive 
the winter. These bees are in two hives, one above the 
other, while those the old way are only in one body, conse- 
quently have less than half the stores. These big double 
hives inside are so amply protected, being five inches 
from the outside wall, which relieves them of all danger from 
snow, sleet or ice clogging the entrance; and being twenty 
inches from the ground, gives an opportunity to keep the 
entrance from inside and out entirely clear at all times — a 
thing of va'St importance in wintering bees successfully. 
After having a sufficiency of good stores directly above the 
bees, I would place keeping the entrances open and clear 
at all times next in importance. Therefore, if we can winter 
and summer so successfully in buildings in this way and get 
so very much more fine honey, our bee men and every one 
engaging in bee keeping should not be slow in keeping their 
bees in buildings or at least testing these buildings. The 
value of the bees lost during the recent hard winters, that 
hermetically sealed all exposed hives out doors, would have 
built buildings for all the bees in the country. 



CHAPTER XIII 
Wintering Bees. 



The wintering of our bees successfully has been the 
great problem confronting bee keepers. The winter losses 
have been so great some winters as to almost threaten to 
wipe out the industry. 

Cellar wintering has been resorted to very extensively 
of late years, but it is found that while the bees will live in 
the cellar through the winter, on account of their long 
confinement without a flight or an opportunity to unload 
their bowels, they come out of the cellar in a weakened con- 
dition, for these reasons many are looking for a better way 
And our trials of buildings would lead us to feel confident 
that this way of wintering will entirely solve the wintering 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 33 

problem. Because the disasters to bees wintered in the old 
ways in the past twenty years, have been enormous ; while 
the percentage of losses of bees in buildings have amounted 
to nothing, although they have had little or no care, except 
perhaps the care a novice might bestow upon them, or had 
to get along with the care they could give themselves as 
they would have to do in a tree in the woods. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Foul Brood and the Pearce Method of Control. 



Foul brood is about the only disease that our honey-bees 
have. This is a disease we might say of the bee children as 
the adult bees' do not have it. The disease seems to be infec- 
tuous thru the honey. In this way, if some of the honey 
from a colony that had foul brood is used by another colony 
and fed to their young bees, they will contract the disease. 
So to cure it, we have to get rid of the brood and honey that 
is in a foul brood colony. We have to separate the bees and 
queen from their brood and honey to make a cure. 

To do this, several different methods have been tried. 
The first plan that was presented to us, was to get an empty, 
clean hive, and set it down where the infected one was. Then 
about sun-down they would shake and brush the bees and 
queen from these diseased combs and honey from the 
diseased hive, and put into this clean hive. 

Sometimes they would hang one or two old, clean combs 
that they did not care much for and pour in a half cup or so 
of syrup on these before shaking- the bees. Then shake in 
the bees. The reason for putting in these combs and syrup 
was so that the bees, after shaking, ^^;ould unload any 
diseased honey they brought from the diseased hive, so they 
could gather up this spilt syrup and store it in the combs. 
Then the next night they would carefully take away these 
combs with what they contained. Then they gave these bees 
in the clean hive full sheets of foundation and let the bee 
draw out and fill these, and so effect a cure. 

The objection to this plan is this. In shaking the bees 
from the combs you would be most sure to drop more or less 
honey that other bees might come and get, and in this way, 
if they did, they would cause more disease than they would 
cure, besides all the brood that was destroyed. 

A couple years ago, a plan came from the West. This 
was to put the diseased hive into a water tank, put a clean 
hive on the top and let water into the tank, so as to float the 
bees up into the clean hive above. Then set the hive off into 



84 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 




Foul Brood. (Compare with healthy brood, page 27.) 



a clean bottom board and the job was done. This plan had 
the advantage of keeping the bees all shut in, but it had other 
disadvantages that were serious. The comb and honey were 
wetted and healthy brood destroyed, and so was very faulty. 
The Pearce Method of Curing Foul Brood. 
The plan that I now use is this. First I use a hive, two 
hives high, proceed to set the diseased hive off its stand and 
put a clean hive with foundation and bottom board is its 
place. Make the ground clean all around it. Then open the 
diseased hive, pick out any diseased combs with brood from 
both bodies and put them into one. By this time, if you give 
a little smoke, most of the bees will have run into the new 
hive on the old stand. When the queen is found brush her 
into the newly prepared hive, then put a bee escape board on 
the new hive, and set the diseased hive above, cover up good 
and any sound brood that is in among the diseased will go 
down thru the bee esca,pe, but cannot get back up. It is warm 
up there, so all healthy brood and bees will hatch, and go 
down thru the escape board. Now a bee that goes down thru 
this board, goes with the intention of going to the field for 
a load of honey. She always goes out empty so all impure 
honey is left above the escape board, and all pure honey from 
the field is deposited below, as no bees can go up thru the bee 
escape board. This is the easiest, the safest, and the best 
way I have ever used in curing foul brood, which I do not 
consider a very troublesome disease, or hard to cure in this 
way, for there is no commotion or spilling of honey and may 
be done any time of the day. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 35 

To be concise, the advantages of this method are: 

First, All healthy brood is saved. 

Second All the comb is saved and can be melted for 

foundation. 
Third, There is no danger of diseased honey being scattered 

and picked up by stray bees, thus scattering 

instead of curing the disease, as all the 

diseased bees are shut in, and no healthy 

bees can get to them. 
Fourth, By hatching all the unhatched brood, it leaves the 

comb in much better sha,pe to be rendered 

into wax. 
Fifth, Honey is saved and can be used instead of being 

destroyed, as any full combs of honey can 
be eaten by people, but should never be fed to the bees. 



CHAPTER XV; 
Robber Bees and Their Coiiir<J. 



Robber bees sometimes become troublesome when there 
is a dearth of honey, especially if there are some queeniess 
colonies in the bee yard. It is one of the hard things for a 
beginner to know when bees are robbing because they so 
nearly imitate young bees at play, for in both cases the bees 
fly quite actively. But usually when young bees are taking 
a play spell near noon they are very peaceable while robber 
bees are usually quite cross and if robbing becomes prevalent 
they will try to sting everything around. This is one of the 
best ways to tell whether the bees are robbing or not by the 
disposition they show, that is, cross if robbing and amiable 
if playing. 

There has been many ways devised to stop robbing. 
Among these, is to close up the hive entrance so as to leave 
a very small opening, others have used loose grass or other 
substances, but the robber bees usually push their way in 
through all these and the trouble goes on. Last year I 
thought of a plan that pleases me better than all these other 
ways. We had plenty of moving screens on hand and I just 
put on one of these screens on the colony being robbed to 
give them air and closed the entrance wholly and all at once 
all robbing ceased. If you have no screen just use burlap 
or cloth of some kind. 

If it is when the bees are flying in the daytime it would 
be well in about a half hour to open the hive for a few 
minutes to let any bees that might have been in the field 
when the hive was closed go in and let filled robbers go out, 



36 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

then close up again. Then at or near sundown open up the 
hive and see what's the matter. If queenless as it probably 
is, give it a new queen or queen cell or frame of brood with 
young eggs for them to raise themselves a queen. In addi- 
tion it would be well the next day to change places with a 
strong colony. Then your troubles should cease. 

CHAPTER XVI 
Bee Keeping for the Far North. 



We have all across our northern border, and stretching 
far away into the British possessions, a vast domain. This 
territory is well protected with snow so all plants, wild and 
cultivated, thrive and blossom well, but the winter is long 
and the cold quite continuous. If bees can be brought 
through the long winter safely, they are hable to store honey 
abundantly during the short summers, as the days are long 
and the bloom quite profuse ; but in the low, flat hives that 
have been used, there is not sufficient room to hold plenty of 
stores to last through these long winters and through the 
spring until the spring blossoms come. It is here that our 
big double hives will fill a very important place for by having 
this large store of honey it will carry the bees safely through 
any winter that comes. This makes it possible for the people 
living much farther north to keep bees and get a honey 
supply, because the abundant snow protects the clovers and 
other honey plants, so that they yield plenty of honey. 

The bees can be kept and handled in these large hives as 
described by this method, kept in fairly warm shelters, built 
with lumber and roofing paper. By having their entrances 
kept well open at all times, winter and summer they can 
always avail themselves of a flight whenever the weather is 
suitable, late in the fall and early in the spring. This also 
provides proper ventilation. A great dteal of damage comes 
to bees from their entrances becoming clogged with dead 
bees and cappings on the inside, and snow and ice or other 
causes on the outside, which causes the bees to become damp. 
More bees are lost in this manner than in any other way. 
If bees can be kept dry, there is very little danger from cold 
of any reasonable degree. We almost forgot that our fore- 
fathers kept their bees successfully for years in single-walled 
box hives, and we have seen so many examples where bees 
have withstood low temperatures, that I feel sure many bee 
keepers are unduly alarmed about their bees suffering from 
the cold. An extensive bee keeper here told me he bought 
five colonies of bees that passed through that worst winter 
of the seventies in long box hives set up on the edges of two 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 37 

wide boards and no bottoms on the hives, and they came 
through in fine shape and did better than any he had the 
next season. If cold could have killed bees surely these 
should have been dead. Again I saw a light afterswarm go 
through a winter in a double ten frame hive, one above the 
other with nothing but foundation in the upper hive, and only 
a small supply of stores in the lower hive, but they wintered 
well, being very dry. Therefore pay more attention to keep- 
ing your bees dry and do not be afraid they will freeze in a 
single thickness hive. I therefore feel sure if the people of 
the far north will place their bees in these large tall hives 
that will hold sufficient stores to carry them safely through 
any winter, and will put them in suitable shelters properly 
built, it will be possible for the people of the north to keep 
bees long stretches of miles farther north than they could 
formerly have been kept in ordinary hives. I am confident 
that in this way bees may be successfully kept away into the 
land of the Assiniboins, and far above Winnipeg, even to 
Alaska in our own territory. This would be a good thing 
for our neighbors of the north to practice on and see how 
far north the successful line of bee keeping can be pushed. 
And our people who are so favorably situated with plenty 
of bees in California, should push bee keeping north to 
Alaska. But for these great extremes, I would have large 
deep hives and would place first in house attics and allow 
the bees to fly at all times when they can. 

CHAPTER XVII. 
How to Care for Weak Colonies in the Spring. 



This is a very important subject, no matter from what 
angle you look at it. It is important to save all weak colonies 
in the spring, and to do this in such a way that they will not 
be a prey to robber bees, and become a menace to the whole 
yard. So if you have any weak colonies in the spring, and 
some strong ones, you can go quietly to your strong colony, 
uncover it and put on a good queen excluder. Then, take 
your very weakest colony, and set it on the strongest. Your 
next weakest on your next strongest and so on, until you 
get to the medium. Do everything quietly, cover up well, 
and you can leave them for about three weeks. Then set 
them off, and the weak one will be filled with brood, and be 
as strong as any in the yard. 

I once found a very weak swarm, when we set our bees 
out of the cellar in March. That was before I had learned a 
better way of wintering bees than of cellar wintering. This 
weak swarm contained less than thirty bees, and right 



38 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

beside it was a very strong colony. The weak colony did not 
have a spoonful of honey in the hive, so I concluded to set 
this weak colony on the strong one, at once. I did so, for I 
felt sure they could not survive thru that night. I am willing 
to confess that I did not have much hope that anything 
would come of it, but to my surprise, in three weeks it had 
more brood than any other colony in the yard. Of course, 
that hive body was entirely empty, and so this queen had 
nothing to do, but fill this hive with eggs. The bees boiled 
up thru the excluder from the strong hive below, and carried 
up all needed material, and in everyway cared for the bees 
of this upper queen equally as well as for those below, so 
that they were in every way a good colony. 

It was recommended by Alexander, who was the author 
of this plan, to set this colony off from the heavy one after 
three weeks, and this we used to practise, but now I would 
recommend a plan that suits me better. Instead of setting 
this hive off, I would let it alone until it was filled with eggs. 
Then in three or four weeks more you can go to it, carefully 
lift out the frames until you find the one the queen is on. 
Lift it out with the queen, and make a neucleus of it for a 
new swarm. Put your surplus cases on the big hive, and you 
will be due for an enormous crop of honey. Of course, take 
away your queen excluder from the big hive, so that the 
queen which was confined to the lower hive can go to both. 
The neucleus that was in the upper hive can easily be built 
up before fall into a strong double colony. 

Formerly we have been taught that when a colony had 
run down to this low ebb, it was the fault of the queen, and 
the colony should be re-queened, and so I believed. This 
queen referred to with the weak colony was a slim one, and 
small, but she surely surprised me the way she built up her 
depleted hive, as soon as she was supplied with sufficient 
bees and material. So it proved in this case that is was not 
the fault of the queen but her surroundings and helpers that 
were to blame. You can see by this article that two queens 
can be worked in one hive, as in this case. The first time I 
practised it, I tried fifteen light colonies on fifteen heavy 
ones, and all were a success, and it has been successful every 
time I have since tried it. 

The reason for taking only a neucleus from the two 
hives instead of dividing them and making two hives the 
same as they were at first, is as follows : 

With the one big double colony, all the bees 
have to do is to store honey, and you are sure of a 
bumper crop from this colony. A crop which would 
equal in size the crop normally obtained from both. 
In the meantime the small, weak colony can build 
itself up. On the other hand, if you divided them 
equally, you would have to put another hive on each. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 39 

in order to make the strong colonies we advocate. 
If this were done both colonies would have to stop 
and build themselves up before storing honey. If 
this were not done, that is, if only the lower hive 
were left, and the supers put on these, there is the 
old danger of swarming. 

This method also protects the weak colony from robbery, 
as the strong colony below protects the upper one, for any 
robber bees must pass thru the strong lower hive. Of course, 
it is understood that altogether both colonies act as one, 
both going out of the same entrance. The queen excluder 
simply keeps the two queens apart. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
Method of Queen Rearing. 



For beginners I will outline one or two of the more 
simple methods of queen rearing, leaving the more advanced 
to the artificial queen producers. 

We have learned that we can make a hive of bees swarm 
almost any time when honey is coming in during warm 
weather. As we know that bees are almost sure to swarm 
as soon as a hive is filled. That is as soon as there is honey 
or polen which is called bee bread and eggs that fills all the 
cells and there is no more room for the queen to deposit these 
2000 or more eggs per day. When this condition arrives 
queen cells are started and the bees swarm out to get an 
empty home so the old queen that goes with them can keep 
on laying. 

If you want queen cells early just pick out a few of your 
best swarms to breed from and put an inverted ten pound 
pail of syrup with perforated lid over a bee escape board 
with the bee escape removed. Put a hive body around this 
if it is outdoors. This extra syrup will help fill all the 
cells in the hive and your bees will soon start a nice lot of 
queen cells for you. But do not have any supers on this hive 
else the bees may carry the honey up out of this brood cham- 
ber and so retard swarming, and that you don't want done at 
this juncture. Now you can watch and wait for your bees 
to swarm which they will do shortly. You should have picked 
out four or five of the heaviest swarms as near alike as 
possible and if you feed up all at the same time they will all 
swarm about the same. You can figure ten to fifteen queen 
cells to a hive, say ten so if you want a hundred cells you 
had better feed up ten hives. There will be no loss getting: 
these cells, for as soon as they swarm or before you can put 



40 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



your suprlus cases on and they will give you a lot of honey 
because they are so strong. 

After they swarm mark down the date and about seven 
days after, other swarms will begin to issue. So after about 
the fifth day after the swarm issues you better have some 
work in the yard so you can be standing around and watch 
things closely. But the seventh or eight day you might 
begin to cut out the cells. If some are not mature enough 
you might leave them a day or two and watch them. When 
you commonce to cut out your queen cells you should do it 
in the middle of a warm day and do not jar or handle roughly 
in any way. You should have an hand a set of Rafchins queen 
cells and you can hang the cell back into the hive that 
you cut them out of, the bees will keep them warm and 



t-s>.{:.-i«»-j-.--aii.-.-?i»..-Ma5«5SHS.^ «i.v> /"-jt-£iWMi^asatts,aMja«Ba«aj««^«.ia^ 






Set oi aiuiifially raised Q"t'fii ceiLs. Aiosi v^ueeii Breeders perfer.to 
have a special house for raising- Queens. All our bees are housed at 
all times, so with our method, we do not need special houses. 



feed the young queens after they hatch. In three or four 
days when all are hatched you can prepare your neucli and 
put your queen with them or make other disposition of them 
as you may need. You can make a strong swarm start queen 
cells at once by taking this queen away but this is not as 
easy for a beginner as the way just described. The second 
plan would be carried out the same in every way as the first 
only by taking away the queen to make them start the cells 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 41 

at once. These plans will do for the beginner and when you 
are older you can take up the Brenner or Doolittle plans or 
any other you might choose. In raising your own queens you 
would probably not get pure mating and would only have 
hybrids if you had pure mothers to start your cells. But 
good-hibirds are a good deal better than no queens at all and 
some prefer them to the pure. What I have said in this 
article is for the beginner. Many are deterred from rearing 
their own queens because they think it difficult but in this 
way it is not at all hard to do. So have a lot of bees and 
queens either by raising them or buying them — but have 
them. 

Although explaining and telling about raising queens I 
would strongly advocate buying queens from the South, as 
they are so much earlier, they can start working and 
building up the colonies a couple of months earlier than if 
grown in the North. Therefore we have a strong swarm 
before the honey flow starts in the spring, a swarm which is 
ready to work. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
Bees, Poultry and Fruit. 



Here are three industries, any one of which, if well 
followed, will make a full-fledged business or occupation, but 
after having had the privilege of studying the whole three 
for some 40 years, I have fully come to the conclusion, that 
the best results can be obtained from a judicious combina- 
tion of all of these industries. 

Each of these vocations are helpful to the others 
and in some respects absolutely necessary for the best 
results, for instance: The fruits are a great help to the 
bees and the bees are just as essential for the proper pollena- 
tion of the fruits; but some may wonder how the poultry 
could be benefitted or be a benefit to the bees or fruit. 

The poultry needs and must have shade. We might 
about as well cut the heads from our poultry as to turn them 
into a barren lot without shade, and fruit trees, especially 
plum trees makes a very fine shade for the poultry and the 
poultry does not seem to care for or trouble the plums. On 
the farm our plum orchard came right down to the chicken 
yard, but I never knew the chicken to, in any way, trouble 
the plums. 

But why select plums for the poultry yard ? The first 
consideration would be because the curculio, this trouble- 
some insect that stings the plums and destroys the fruit, 
cannot well exist where plenty of poultry is kept in the plum 



42 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



orchard. This insect in early spring burrows in the ground 
about the plum trees and where the poultry is kept to work 
the ground over under the trees this insect cannot live. 

For this reason the keeping of poultry is the best means 
to employ to rid the plum orchard of this troublesome pest. 
Then again, the plum trees are gross feeders and the drop- 
pings from the chickens is a great help in keeping up the 
fertility of the orchard and where a large flock can be kept, 
this amounts to considerable, as the chemists tell us the 
droppings from eight hens is equal to one cow, and if much 
poultry is kept they will keep the orchard entirely free from 
weeds, so nothing will have to be expended for cultivation, 
therefore the avails from the plum orchard can be had with 
little or no expense, and we find plums one year with another,, 
one of the surest and most profitable crops. 




Exterior ot a combined Poultry and Bee house at the author's home, 
showing- where bees are kept in barn loft and poultry house. 



If the ground is kept thus clean by the poultry it 
would be well to divide the grounds with a netting and sow 
down one-half of it at a time to oats to furnish green feed 
for the poultry and to draw out any strong odor from the 
ground. 

A word about the varieties of plums to plant. With my 
present knowledge I think I should plant half each of Lom- 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 43 

bard and October Purple. I know that the Lombard is all 
right and from wh&t I have learned of the October Purple 
it is in every way reliable. They could be set 12 to 16 feet 
^part. If other fruits are to be planted they could be set 
outside of the poultry enclosure. But apples might also be 
in the chicken yard. 

Now that we have learned with our improved method of 
bee keeping, we can just as well keep our bees and our 
poultry together in the same houses and same yards with no 
loss to either. This will greatly increase the profits and 




Interior of the Poultry and Bee House shown on opposite page. 



reduce the e;cpenses as the poultry houses are the big item 
of expense. If we can utiHze them for the bees also and get 
as much or more profit than from poultry it surely should 
be profitable. 

With these three pursuits carefully arranged on a three 
to five acre lot or more extensive farm, I feel sure a larger 
revenue can be realized from it than from any other rural 
pursuit I have any knowledge of. 



44 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

I would try to locate on a good line of communication 
with a good market near one of our interurban roads if 
possible. I would want a good elevation on account of the 
fruit. The soil should be medium, not too heavy or too light. 
Care should be exercised in avoiding mistakes in laying out 
the grounds, and putting up the buildings, if none are on 
the ground or re-arranging buildings if any are on the place, 
and the selection and planting the fruits which should be 
started as soon as possible to attain a growth for shade and 
fruit. 

In building the poultry and bee house, I would build it 
12 feet wide and as long as you need for the flock and no 
higher than you need, say 7 feet. I would face it to the 
east as all of your windows and openings are supposed to 
be on that side and will be away from the direction of our 
prevailing severe storms and the west side against which 
the poultry roosts should be, made as tight and warm as 
possible, and then on that side fast growing vines might be 
planted like grapes for shade to keep off the severe west 
sun in the later part of the day. This will be a great relief 
to the chickens when they go to roost at evening. I know 
that facing the house to the east is quite an innovation. It 
has so long been the habit to face them to the south, but if 
you will reflect on it for a moment, you will see if you face 
toward the south, you make almost an equatorial heat with 
the sun shining on the front of the long house, and then it 
spoils your opportunity to protect your house, as it should 
be, from the west and southwest storms and wind or shade 
as it should be, and then the early morning is the coldest 
time and if the windows open to the east the poultry will get 
the benefit from the morning sun. 

I think if you reflect on these points you will never 
again want to face a bee house or poultry house to the south. 
A house as good as we need can be built of dressed hemlock 
and covered all over with roofing material on the outside 
with some closed ventilators coming down to perhaps a foot 
of the floor, but for the convenience in keeping it clean I 
want a good cement floor in the house. It need not be thick 
as you never intend to drive a loaded wagon over it. Then 
you can scatter a little dry sand or litter over it and every- 
thing will be clean and nice. 

If you will please notice the inside cut of my house, 
you will notice that the shelf the bees sit on is 20 inches high 
from the floor and 20 inches wide. Under this shelf is an 
admirable place for the hens' nests. I use old bee hives for 
this purpose. The glass of the windows should all be cut 
one-half inch short at the bottom to let any bees go out, so 
they will not die on the windows if you work at the bees 
when the windows are closed. 

But in the summer all windows can be opened as no 
bees come inside enough to bother you. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 45 

In winter, we stop up this cut in the bottom of the glass 
with a bit of lath. 

Before I close I would like to speak of the dropping 
board I use. I had become disgusted with dropping boards, 
they were so hard to clean. So I thought I would try one 
of oilcloth and to my delight nothing sticks to it. We throw 
a little sand or dust over it when ever we clean it off. If 
you have old wooden boards, by all means cover them with 
oilcloth. All poultrymen should know of this as it makes 
easy what used to be a hard job. I use a trowel to clean it 
with. 



CHAPTER XX. 

How Bees Behave in a Chicken House Where Bees and 
Poultry Are Kept Together. 



This is a subject about which there is not much known. 
At least I did not know anything about it till I tried it. I 
never had heard of anyone trying it, but on the fruit farm 
our Brown Leghorn Chickens spent a good deal of their 
time in the bee yard, so much so that I thought seriously of 
making the bee yard into a run for the poultry, I have heard 
that bees sometimes sting chickens, but I never saw a case of 
it, so I do not believe it is prevalent enough to give any harm. 

Last year we had 30 hens and 6 large colonies of bees 
together all summer and they did not seem to give any 
trouble to the hens, and the hens seemed to take well to the 
bees. The poultry house was 10 feet wide and 18 feet long. 
It is built across the end of the barn and faces to the east. 
As we understand, poultry house construction, there always 
should be one dark side and one very light side for the poul- 
try themselves so it makes it easy to arrange it for bees 
after it is built for chickens. The roosts were arranged on 
the dark side of the house, as they always should be, and all 
along the front as you see, there is a row of windows and 
just below these windows we built a shelf 20 inches high 
and 20 inches broad. The length of the house, and on this 
shelf the bees are put. This places them high enough to 
work with well and also they are high enough so the chick- 
ens can go under this shelf where they have their nests in 
some unused bee hives, and we hang a curtain down from 
this shelf and this makes a dark place for the nests, which 
the hens like. The hens have all the floor space they would 
have had if the bees were not in and to keep the hens from 
flying up on the bee hives, we just screen down from the 
top with 2 inch poultry netting to the edge of the shelf 



46 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

behind the bees. This neting we have in 6 foot lengths and 
a Hght bar across the bottom which we hook up to the roof 
when we work at the bees, which is not very often, as we 
keep them. Two visits a year will do, if we don't care to 
give them more. Once to look them over in the spring to 
see if they are free from foul brood, and put on our honey 
cases and again to take oif honey and fix them for winter. 
But the hens we have to visit over 700 times a year, if v/e 
only see them twice a day, and the feed we give these hen? 
for the year, if seen all together, would frighten us. And 
yet poultry raising is lauded to the skies while bee keeping 
it is not thought amounts to much, but you will find a few 
colonies of bees will bring you more clear money than quite 
a large flock of chickens, and will not require a hundredth 
part of the labor to care for them, as the bees work for 
nothing, and board themselves and so require no feed from 
you, and little attention. 



CHAPTER XXI. 
The Real Mission of the Bees. 



We have all of us been, I think, inclined to look upon the 
bees as gatherers of honey, mainly as this is what they were 
made for. There has been some good reason for this for 
the honey has been the thing which they produce that we all 
have had our eye on and it has appealed to our taste as well. 
But the polen they bring in is not so attractive to us. We 
have looked upon it as a by-product rather in the way as we 
used to get our honey. We formerly used to call it bee bread. 

Even Dr. Watts (that almost matchless poet) wrote for 
us those memorable lines. "How doth the little busy bee 
improve each shining hour and gathers honey all the day 
from every opening flower." But he does not say a word 
about the polen she gathers, although he seemed to have 
knowledge enough of the bee, even at that early day to know 
that it was the lady side of the house that did all the work. 
As he wrote : "How skillfully she builds her cell. How neat 
she spreads her wax. And labors hard to sfore it well with 
the sweet food she makes." But not a word about polen. 
And yet it seems that polen gathering and polen distribution 
is the real great work for which the bees were designed, 
because it has been made by the great designer, imperative 
in two ways : That the bees must have and use polen. In the 
first place, the bees cannot rear their young without this 
polen ; and in the second place the honey is placed below the 
polen and in going down after the honey, her head comes in 
contact with the polen which she hastens to deposit fresh 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 47 

on the next blossom. No other agency known can do this 
work so perfectly and economically as the so-called honey 
bee. As she does not allow this polen to get stale, for every 
so often she rubs off this stale polen and places it in her hip 
pockets and when she gets a load of honey she carries it 
home to feed the babies on, for honey alone seems to be too 
strong, or something, and so imperative is this need for 
something to mix with honey, that in the spring before the 
blossoms come the bees will carry in horse feed and in the 
absence of this they will take in soft wood saw dust to mix 
in the honey. And so we see the beauty of this all. And 
why bees are the greatest friends of the orchard man as 
they will give him very much more and larger and better 
fruits. Turning many of his second apples into firsts, and 
besides doing this work for nothing and boarding them- 
selves, a good swarm of bees with our modern appliances 
will store for its owner from 50 to 200 pounds of comb honey 
per year. In looking the matter over from my view point, 
I wonder that so many orchard men do not keep bees of their 
own and rake in those benefits from both ways instead of 
running the precarious risk of having the other fellow keep 
the bees for you and eat all the honey gathered from your 
blossoms. In the near future, as soon as man becomes more 
advanced, when we visit a large fruit establishment and 
after being shown by the owner his great spraying outfit, 
I should expect to have him take me to visit his fine apiary 
in modern up-to-date hives, well housed and cared for like 
the other stock on the place, for if they are thus cared for 
they will bring a larger dividend for very much less labor 
than the other stock or even fruits. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Facts and Comments. 



One pound of honey is worth three pounds of sugar. 

Our hives average 100 pounds of honey per hive, which 
equals one barrel of sugar. 

The first swarm of bees was brought to Booston around 
1600. 

Miss Mattie Rogers, Clyde Park Ave., Grand Rapids, 
Mich., started with one of our swarms about 1908 and ob- 
tained 183 pounds of honey the first year. From an average 
of 17 colonies over a period of six years, she averaged 1818 
pounds per year. Miss Rogers started as a novice. 

The Pearce New Method of Bee Keeping is the result 
of 40 years actual experience. Any chapter worth more 
than the price of the book. 



48 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

Honey is a necessary food, like wheat, bread, and meat. 
It helps to make up a balanced ration. 

The present price of honey, willmake even a light crop 
pay first cost of the bees, and give a comfortable surplus. 

Mr. Wernicke of Grand Rapids, Mich., averaged this 
poor season 150 pounds of honey from six colonies. Last 
year he received over 200 pounds per colony. His bees are 
kept by our method. 

Always leave plenty of stores about your bees. Bees 
eat upward and must have plenty of food above them. 

Bee ventilate their hives by moving their wings like an 
electric fan. 

The most common bees found in this country are the 
Black and the Italian. Others are a mixture from these. 

The Italian bees are considered the best as they are 
gentler and easier handled. 

A swarm averages about 50,000 bees in a single hive. 

Our hive averages from 100,000 to 200,000 bees. 

Bees are sold from the south by the pound. From one 
to three pound lots are placed in a cage when shipped. 

Two pounds of bees are generally placed in a hive with 
the queen. 

Queens are shipped in cages with full directions how 
to liberate. Food is packed in the cell with them. 

Pollen is carried in pockets at the joining of the rear 
legs and the body. The pollen clings to the bees when they 
are after the honey, and they brush it back to these sockets. 

Carrying the pollen from flower to flower pollenates 
the fruit. 

Every house in the land has room for from one to ten 
hives. These can be put in without extra expense for build- 
ing. In this way we can help conserve and gather an un- 
limited supply of sweets. 

''Gather Honey and Conserve Sugar." 

Any building or place where bees are kept should have 
the windows open outwards. This can be easily done, by 
boring a hole through the sash, into the casing on each side. 
Then drive a 20 or 40 penny spike for the windows to turn 
on. Drive your spike the distance from the top of the 
window that you wish your window to turn in. 

Never handle bees in the dark, as they will sting the 
minute they touch you if it is dark. Always have plenty of 
light. 

Bees will go towards a light. 

Always wear white or light colored clothing when 
handling bees. A covering of mosquito netting and a little 
smoke will keep you from getting stung. 

Never wear clothes that will let the bees crawl up in 
under clothing. Bees always crawl up. Tuck in clothes so 
as to be arranged like reversed clapboard or shingles on a 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 49 

house. Cover in order named, hat face clothes, shoes, and 
all with mosquito netting, leaving no openings for them to 
crawl under. Where flaps or edges cover each other have 
the lower piece of netting or clothing outside. 

The worker and queen larvae are fed the same for the 
first three days, after which the worker is given a coarse 
food called pap, while the queen is given plenty of food called 
Royal Jelly during the entire growth. 

The queen bee lives from three to five years. 

The worker lives only about six weeks in the working 
season as they wear themselves out. 

All worker bees die every spring. 

A worker gathers only a spoonful of honey in its life 
time. 

Drones never produce anything themselves. 

The queen of her own free will, except to swarm never 
leaves the hive but once. 

The queen makes this one flight, to mate, when she ia 
a few days old. 

The queen lays from 2000 to 3000 eggs a day, all of 
which could be made into queens. 

The queen is never mutilated by the worker. Her person 
is sacred. If she is judged and found guilty, they execute 
her by forming a sohd ball around her and thus suffocate 
her. 

Bees, reject paraffine as foundation. 

The most interesting study in the world, and the most 
profitable business. Give the bees a home and they will 
work and earn money for you. 

Always start right in bee keeping, using the best Italian 
Bees, the best dove-tailed hives and Hoffman frames and 
the Pearce Method. 




50 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 




FATHER I. L. LANGSTROTH. 
The Originator of our Removable Frame Hive. 

LORENZO LORRAIN LANGSTROTH, sometimes called the 
"Father of American Apiaculture" was born in Philadelphia, Dec. 10, 
1810. He entered Yale College graduating in 1831. In 1837 he became 
interested in bees by seeing a glass vessel filled with beautiful comb 
honey at the house of a friend. He became enthusiastic and at once 
purchased two colonies of bees. In 1848 he began to experiment with 
hives of different forms and after much study and experimenting he 
devised the Movable Frame Hive. 

This invention gave him perfect control over the combs of the hive 
and gave a new impetus to the easy and profitable management of 
bees. 

Mr. Langstroth afterward engaged in the propagation of Italian 
Queens on a large scale. 

His many writings on the subject of bees have made his name 
venerated by American Bee Keepers, who are aware of the great 
debt due him by the fraternity. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



51 




CHAS. DAD A NT. 

MR. CHAS. DADNAT was bom May 22, 1817 at Vaus-Sons-Aubi- 
gny, France and came to America in 1863 setting in Hamilton, III., 
and engaged in Bee Culture, which is his hand yielded marvelous 
results. He soon became noted as one of the Leading Apiarists of the 
world. Mr. Dadant has been a prolific writer and his contributions to 
the Leading American and European Been Juornals have made his 
name thoroughly familiar to apiarists all over the world. 



52 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 




A. I. ROOT. 

The name of A. I. ROOT deserves to be considered a household 
word. His great crownine: work, the A-B-C and X-Y-Z of Bee Culture, 
which is an encyclopedia on this subject would be enough to immorta- 
lize any man. 

The great work he has been doing later for the upbuilding of the 
home and the elevation, morally and physically of his fellowmen, must 
endear him to every lover of the good, the pure and the true. It is a 
great thing to so live that all our lives, like his, are devoted to the 
uplift of humanity. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



68 




E. R. ROOT 

Fortunate indeed has it been for Bee Culture that we have such 
men as the Roots to write down and record observations and facts 
about bees. E. R. Root whose picture appears above is now carrying 
on this great work as editor of "Gleanlings in Bee Culture". He 
started active work in 1883, although he has worked among bees 
since childhood. He has worked with such zeal that he is now a 
central figure in Bee Culture, an authority upon the subject and 
has a great many improvements and inventions to his credlit. He 
fcelieves in strong colonies and reduced swarming as we advocate 
and has been very successful in choosing new dev^ises. 

We might say that A. I. Root is the "A. B. C." of Bee Culture 
and that E. R. Root is trying hard and with great success to reach 
the "X^, Y. Z." of course there will always be more to learn, but 
even if this pinnacle can not be reached, them two men and their 
associates have done such work that Bee Men' and the world should 
always be grateful. 



54 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



SUMMARY 



We present these few testimonials from these very busy- 
people, who are well known to all of us, for the encourage- 
ment of those who may not have had much of any experi- 
ence with bees, to show them with what ease these people 
get this large yield of honey from year to year by this 
method. None of these people had ever kept bees before. 

This you will notice is all made possible by hav- 
ing the bees in this large hive, made of two ordinary 
hives, and then placing this hive inside of a building or 
shelter where it is safe at all -times and can be most easily 
cared for. The fact that we can get such a large supply 
of comb honey should appeal to every one. 

It has heretofore been impossible to produce comb 
honey without swarming, and this swarming was a great 
trouble to any one starting with only a few colonies of bees. 
They did not have enough time to spare to watch them, and 
swarms would issue and go away in the absence of the 
keeper. This made it so uncertain and has been the great 
cause of so many starting in bee keeping and being obliged 
to give it up. Now with this new way, where the bees do 
not swarm till you wish them to, it makes it possible for peo- 
ple in other business, to begin bee keeping and pursue it 
till they can give up their other occupations and devote 
themselves wholly to the bees if they wish. For this reason 
it will make a fine vocation for ladies as well as gentlemen. 
It is an open aid business and you are not confined to it 
except for a minimum of time through the summer months, 
as the bees are dormant in winter. 

This is so different from poultry keeping, w^hich many 
have tried, but in which the constant care has been so great 
that many have been obliged to abandon it. We know of 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 55 

nothing that should appeal to teachers and others in vari- 
ous walks of life so much as bee-keeping by this method. 
It can be taken up almost anywhere that you happen to 
be, in city or country, as honey is found plentifully in any 
locality. Not much capital or land is needed to start. 
Neither does it require an expensive outfit to begin. 
You can start with one colony if you wish. It is all very 
simple and you should learn it in a day or two. It is noth- 
ing to learn as compared to the poultry business or fruit 
raising or many other pursuits, and vastly more profitable. 
Should this book become interesting to many and be 
instrumental in helping some young person to a start in 
life, or make life easier and more pleasant for some aged 
person, it will be a source of gratification to the author and 
his efforts will not have been in vain. 



Author's Note. 

I wish here to acknowledge and thank my young asso- 
ciate, W. T. GROSSMAN. I can not thank him enuf , or give 
him due credit, as it i® to him I owe the revision, betterment 
and compiling of this Third Edition 

JOSEPH A. PEARCE. 



56 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



Grand Rapids, Mich. 

This is to certify that I am keeping bees by the Pearce System- 
Last year one outfit gave me 150 pounds of fine comb honey in one- 
pound boxes. The work in caring for them was merely a pastime as 
compared with the old way when they used to swarm out just when 
we were at our haying, fighting potato bugs, and perhaps a dozen 
other jobs. It would be well if this plan could be . brought to the 
notice of all our farmers. I am a dairy farmer in the Grand River 
Valley north of Grand Rapids. 

L. A. HUBBARD, R. R. No. 9. 



I have kept bees in my city home in Grand Rapids, using THE 
PEARCE METHOD OF BEE KEEPING for the past two years. 
I had absolutely no experience with bees and gave them little care. 
I followed the instructions in THE PEARCE METHOD and in addi- 
tion to harvesting 144 lbs. of the finest clover honey this past summer, 
I had such an increase in bees that I made another colony by following 
the Pearce instructions. There was no swarming during the entire 
year and both hives went into the winter in good, healthy condition. 
The original outfit cost $15.00 and this year's crop of honey was worth 
$50.00, besides the new colony of bees. — George W. Welsh, publisher 
of The Fruit Belt. 



Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Mr. J. A. Pearce, 

City. 

Mr. Dear Mr. Pearce: — 

I take great pleasure in recommending your system of bee keep- 
ing, and for the benefit of those interested, will give a very brief 
statement of results obtained in three years. 

In 1911 I began with one swai-m of bees, keeping it according to 
the "Pearce Method." The following year I had three swarms of 
bees and 170 section boxes of finest white honey from the one swarm. 
The next year I took 360 section boxes from the three swarms. 

Last summer was not a very good one for the honey crop, there 
being almost no white clover near here, however my three swarms 
stored nearly 300 section boxes. 

About August 20 I divided two swarms, making five in all, which. 
I now have in fine condition for this year's work. 

I shall always be grateful that I learned of your "method." 

MATTIE J. ROGERS, 

R. R. 1. 



PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 57 

Mr. Joseph A. Pearce, 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 
My Dear Mr. Pearce: — 

Permit me to express my gratitude to you for suggesting the plan 
of having a swarm of bees so arranged in my barn as to give continu- 
ous satisfaction at a minimum expenditure of energy and thought. 
Since you placed the hive of bees with me, I have found scarcely any 
care necessary and they have returned to me forty to sixty pounds of 
honey per year, which has enabled me to make a good many friends 
happy, for I know of no more delightful gift to a neighbor than a 
card of beautiful honey. The venture has been in every way a success 
and I wish more people would take advantage of your plan. 

Yours very truly, 

CHARLES A. GARFIELD. 



THE WIDDICOMB FURNITURE CO. 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 
My Dear Mr. Pearce: — 

I have taken no small amount of interest in your recent exposi- 
tion of bee culture, especially that phase of it showing how simple a 
matter is the care of a single hive of bees for a family supply of 
honey. 

I think it is twelve years ago that I installed in my barn a hive 
of bees received from you. During all these years we have had an 
abundant supply of honey, and no attention whatever has been given 
to them other than an occasional examination that we might note 
they were prospering. During this time we have taken from the hive 
all the honey we required for our personal use, and in addition to that 
all needed for the lunch room of The Widdicomb Furniture Company 
in the exposition seasons, for my hive has grown to be exceedingly 
productive. Very truly yo-rs, 

Mr. J. A. Pearce, City. WM. WIDDICOMB. 



THE BELKNAP WAGON COMPANY. 

Mr. J. A. Pearce, 

City. 
Dear Sir: — 

I take pleasure in writing and thanking you for the swarm of 
))ees bought of you a little more than a year ago and placed in the 
attic at my home on Madison avenue. Last summer I found that 
the hive was completely filled with honey and on taking it out found 
that I had 134 pounds of the purest and whitest comb honey. 

As a money investment it is one of the best I have ever made 
and the pleasure of having the bees and seeing them about is of 
jrreater value to me than any profit I may make out of the honey. 
As it is I have had honey to give my neighbors, have sold quite a 
bit of it and have plenty left to supply my friends for the entire year. 
I think I shall have to put in another swarm during the coming season. 

Vei'y respectfully, 

C. E. BELKNAP. 



58 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 

A. J. VANDENBERG. 
Savings Teller, Grand Rapids Savings Bank. 
Grand Rapids, Mich. 
Mr. Jos. A. Pearce, 

City. 
My Dear Mr. Pearce: — 

I wish to say just a few words relative to your method of keeping 
bees. 

In the autumn of 1907 you suggested that I try a swarm and 
handle them under the "Pearce system." I did not have very much 
faith in it at the time, but on your strong recommendation I bought 
a swarm. In the spring of 1908 they showed up strong and went 
to work at once. At the end of the season I was surprised to find 
that they had gathered 156 pounds of comb honey, and I at once 
ordered another swarm. 

The results were beyond my highest expectation as several of my 
neighbors have bees under the old method and scarcely ever get any 
results. The fact that they use their bees in connection with their 
greenhouses may have something to do with their lack of success, but 
I feel that your system is certainly the right one, as there is prac- 
tically no work connected with it excepting the removal of the honey 
and taking care to cover the hives in winter. 

Yours respectfully, 

A. J. VANDENBERG, 



EDWARD M. DEANE & COMPANY. 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 
Mr. Joseph A. Pearce, 

City. 
My Dear Mr. Pearce: — 

In reply to your inquiry as to whether I was satisfied with the 
swarm of bees purchased from you tv!0 years ago, will say that they 
have been highly satisfactory. Your method of having bees so that 
they do not swarm is certainly very satisfactory to the amateur bee- 
keeper as they require no attention whatever, only to take the honey 
ofl? in the fall. 

The hive that I have did not become thoroughly established until 
about the middle of the season of 1908, but I am pleased to tell you 
that we took off in the fall about 35 pounds of very superior honey, 
leaving for the bees themselves in the lower sections of the hive, I 
should estimate, nearly 100 pounds of honey. At the present time 
they are in fine condition and I have no doubt but what the coming 
season, if it is a good one for honey gathering, I will get from 100 
to 150 pounds of merchantable honey. 

Hoping that this may be of some assistance to you in inducing 
people to adopt the "Pearce System," I am. 
Very truly yours, 

ANNA BISSELL, by Dwight Smith. 



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and the Company behind it? 

The G. B. Lewis Company has been in the business of manufacturing Bee 
Supplies for forty years. — It has grown from a carpenter shop to a plant 
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-workmanship. LEWIS BEEWARE IS THE SAME TODAY, WAS THE 
SAME YESTERDAY AND WILL BE THE SAME TOMORROW. 

The business has been under one management and the lumber has been 
bought by one buyer for twenty years. He is still managing the business 
and buying the lumber. The head mechanic came into the factory when a 
boy. H» has been supervising for forty years. The bee-hive superintendent 
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been watching Lewis Section machinery and output for thirty-two years. 
This is the Personality that goes to make up Lewis Beeware. 

Does it mean anything to you? 

If you believe that "a bee hive is a bee hive" and are not particular about 
«iuality or workmanship, then any make of bee supplies will suat you; BUT — 
if nothing short of the best will do you, then you want 

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Buy your metal goods and appliances where you like, BUT "if it's made 
of wood" insist on LEWIS BEEWARE— every package of LEWIS Hives 
and every crate of LEWIS Sections bears the BEEWARE brand. LOOK 
FOR IT— INSIST ON IT. 



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We will furnish any style recommended by the PEARCE SYSTEM. 



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